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1 



HANNAH JANE 



BY 



DAVID ROSS LOCKE 

(Petroleum V. Nasby) 



ILLUSTRATED 




BOSTON 

LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 
lSS2 






Copyright, 1881, 
By Lee and Shepard. 



/Z- % 



University Press : John Wilson & Son, 
Cambridge. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

IBestgneU 6g 
S. G. McCUTCHEON and E. H. GARRETT. 

arranged auto 3Ensra&eli 
By GEORGE T. ANDREW. 



PAGE 

"' The great house crowded full of guests" Frontispiece. 

" At her old home in Piketon " 7 

•" Her fingers then were taper and her skin as white as milk" 9 

" I was but little better. True, I'd longer been at school " 11 

" Her form is thin and angular" 13 

*' And everywhere I hold my place among the greatest men " 15 

*' When they all crowd around me, stately dames and brilliant belles " . . • 17 

■*' I can't forget — just at this point another form appears " ...... 19 

" An office with a stove and desk, and books perhaps a score " . . • . .20 

■*' I well remember, when my coat (the only one I had)" 21 

" She made herself most willingly a household drudge and slave " .... 23 

" I was her altar, and her love the sacrificial flame " 25 

" She made me take the stump each fall " 27 

" On the bench at thirty-three " .29 

" First break her heart with cold neglect " 30 

'Tail-piece 31 




HANNAH JANE. 



She isn't half so handsome as when, twenty years agone, 

At her old home in Piketon Parson Avery made us one ; 

The great house crowded full of guests of high and low 
degree, 

The girls all envying Hannah Jane, the boys all envy- 
ing me. 



Her fingers then were taper, and her skin was white as 

milk, 
Her brown hair — what a mass it was ! and soft and fine 

as silk ; 
No wind-moved willow by a brook had ever such a grace : 
The form of Aphrodite, with a pure Madonna face. 

She had but meagre schooling : her little notes to me 

Were full of crooked pot-hooks, and the worst orthog- 
raphy. 

Her "dear" she spelled with double e, and "kiss" with 
single s ; 

But when one's crazed with passion, what's a letter more 
or less ? 



She blundered in her writing, and she blundered when 

she spoke, 
And ev'ry rule of syntax that old Murray made she broke ; 
But she was fresh and beautiful, and I — well, I was young : 
Her form and face far, far outweighed the blunders of 

her tongue. 




I was but little better. True, I'd longer been at school ; 
My tongue and pen were run, perhaps, a trifle more by 

rule ; 
But that was all: the neighbors round, who knew us 

through and through, 
.Spoke but the truth in calling her the better of the two. 



How changed she is ! the light of youth has faded from 

her eyes ; 
Her wavy hair is gone — that loss the coiffeur's art 

supplies ; 
Her form is thin and angular ; she slightly forward bends ; 
Her lingers, once so shapely, now are stumpy at the ends. 

She has made but little progress, and in little are we one ; 
The beauty rare that more than hid that great defect 

is gone. 
My well-to-do relations now deride my homely wife, 
And pity me that I am tied to such a clod for life. 




I know there is a difference ; at reception and levee 
The brightest, wittiest, and most famed of women smile 

on me ; 
And everywhere I hold my place among the greatest men ; 
And sometimes sigh, with Whittier's judge, "Alas! it 

miffht have been." 



When they all crowd around me, stately dames and 

brilliant belles, 
And yield to me the homage that all great success compels, 
Discussing art and state-craft, and literature as well, 
From Homer down to Thackeray, and Swedenborg on 

"Hell," 

I can't forget that from these streams my wife has never 

quaffed, 
Has never with Ophelia wept, nor with Jack Falstaff 

laughed ; 
Of authors, actors, artists — why, she hardly knows the 

names ; 
She slept while I was speaking on the Alabama claims. 




I can't forget Just at this point another form 

appears, — 
The wife I wedded as she was before my prosperous years ; 
I travel o'er the dreary road we journeyed side by side, 
And wonder what my share would be if Justice should 

divide. 

She had four hundred dollars from her father's old estate ; 
On that we two were married, and bravely faced our fate. 
I wrestled with my books; her task was harder far than 

mine — 
'Twas to make two hundred dollars do the work for us 

of nine. 



\ 




At last I was admitted ; then I had my legal lore, 

An office with a stove and desk, and books perhaps a 

score ; 
She had her beauty and her youth, and some housewifely 

skill, 
And love for me and faith in me, and back of that a will. 



I had no friends behind me — no influence to aid; 

I worked and fought for every precious inch of ground 

I made. 
And how she fought beside me ! never woman lived on 

less : 
In two long years she never spent a single cent for dress. 



Ah ! how she cried for joy when my first legal fight was 



When our eclipse passed partly by, and we could see the 

sun ! 
The fee was fifty dollars — 'twas the work of half a year — 
First captive, lean and scraggy, of my legal bow and spear. 



I well remember, when my coat (the only one I had) 
Was seedy grown and threadbare, and, in fact, most 

" shocking bad," 
The tailor's stern remark when I a modest order made : 
" Cash is the basis, Sir, on which we tailors do our trade." 




Her winter cloak was in his shop by noon that very day ; 
She wrought on hickory shirts at night that tailor's bill 

to pay. 
I got a coat, and wore it ; but alas ! poor Hannah Jane, 
Ne'er went to church or lecture till warm weather came 

again. 

Our second season she refused a cloak of any sort, 
That I might have a decent suit in which t' appear in 

court ; 
She made her last year's bonnet do that I might have 

a hat ; 
Talk of the old-time martyrs, flame-enveloped, after that ! 

No negro ever worked so hard : a servant's pay to save, 
She made herself most Avillingly a household drudge and 

slave. 
What wonder that she never read a magazine or book, 
Combining as she did in one, nurse, housemaid, seamstress, 

cook! 



What wonder that the beauty fled that once I so adored ! 
The rose and lily in her face my kitchen fire devoured ; 
Her plump, soft, rounded arm was once too fair to be 

concealed : 
Hard work for me that softness into sinewy strength 

congealed. 




I was her altar, and her love the sacrificial flame ; 
Ah! with what pure devotion she to that altar came, 
And, tearful, flung thereon — alas ! I did not know it 

then — 
All that she was, and more than that, all that she might 

have been! 



At last I won a grand success ! our lives then parted wide ; 
I swiftly climbed the rising road, she walked not by my 

side. 
I'd tried my speed and mettle, gained strength in every 

race ; 
Far up the heights of life was I — she drudging at the base. 

She made me take the stump each fall ; she said 'twas my 

career : 
And wild applause of list'ning crowds was music to my 

ear. 
What stimulus had she to cheer her dreary solitude? 
For me she lived on gladly in a weary widowhood. 

She couldn't hear my maiden speech, but when the press 

agreed 
'Twas the best one of the season, those comments she 

could read ; 
And with a gush of pride thereat, which I had never felt, 
She sent them to me in a note, with half the words 

misspelt. 



I to the legislature went, and said that she should go 
To see the busy world with me, and what 'twas doing know. 
With tearful smile she answered, "No! four dollars is 

the pay ; 
The Bates House rates for board for one is just that 

sum per day." 




At twenty-eight the State-house ; on the bench at thirty- 
three ; 

At forty every gate in life was opened wide to me. 

I nursed my powers, and grew, and made my point ; but 
she — 

Bearing such weary pack-horse loads, what could the 
woman be? 



What could she be ! Oh, shame ! I blush to think what 

she has been : 
The most unselfish of all wives to the selfishest of men. 
Yes, pl am and homely now she is; she's ignorant, 'tis 

true : 
For me she rubbed herself quite out : I represent the two. 




Well, I suppose that I might do as other men have done — 
First break her heart with cold neglect, then shove her 

out alone. 
The world would say 'twas well, and more, would give 

great praise to me 
For having borne with " such a wife " so uncomplainingly. 



And shall I ? No ! The contract 'twixt Hannah, God, 

and me 
Was not for one or twenty years, but for eternity. 
No matter what the world may think ; I know down in 

my heart 
If either, I'm delinquent : she has bravely done her part. 

There's another world beyond this; and on the final day 
Will intellect and learning against such devotion weigh ? 
And when the one made of us two, is torn apart again, 
I'll kick the beam, for God is just, and He knows Hannah 
Jane. 




ILLUSTRATED 

HYMNS AND POEMS, 



Uniform volumes. 410. Illustrated. Per vol., $1.50. 



HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP. 
BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING- 
HOME, SWEET HOME. 
BY JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. 

O WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE 
PROUD? 

BY WILLIAM KNOX. 

ABIDE WITH ME. 
BY HENRY FRANCIS LYTE. 

ROCK OF AGES. 

BY AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY. 

THE BREAKING WAVES DASHED HIGH. 

BY FELICIA HEMANS. 

NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE. 

BY SARAH FLOWER ADAMS. 



LEE AND SHEPARD . . . PUBLISHERS, 

BOSTON. 







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